Today is also the autumn equinox, which means that from tomorrow, the night will become longer than day. And I will be flying back tomorrow morning, and that will be the end of my stay in the UK. Almost time to close this blog.
Monday, September 22, 2008
London
Posting this from the very small hotel room opposite King's Cross station in London. (How small? The attached bathroom occupies half the total room area) Manage to squeeze in the essence of London in the past 2 days: Tower of London, Tower Bridge, South Bank, Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, West Ham United Football Club, British Museum, British Library, and also Sound of Music. Nothing much to say about these, since it is all familiar stuff to people. London is crowded, fast-paced, and untidy. Not a city that I would like to stay in.
Today is also the autumn equinox, which means that from tomorrow, the night will become longer than day. And I will be flying back tomorrow morning, and that will be the end of my stay in the UK. Almost time to close this blog.
Today is also the autumn equinox, which means that from tomorrow, the night will become longer than day. And I will be flying back tomorrow morning, and that will be the end of my stay in the UK. Almost time to close this blog.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Final night in York
So that's it! Tonight is my final night in York, in this dormitory, in this room. It will be my final night hearing the cows mooing, the ducks quacking, and the geese gawking. Yes, I will miss these animals. I don't think ever get a chance to stay so close to these animals again.
To sum up all my feelings: It has been great being a student. I have enjoyed my stay here; the studying, the scenery, the weather(well, the temperature, not the rain), the peace and quiet, the break from life . To all who made this possible, thank you!
I'll be heading down to London tomorrow, and then flying back on the A380 on Tuesday. I won't have regular access to the Internet from tomorrow till at least a week after I arrive, since I have to reapply to Singnet, and their website says it takes at least 4 working days to get the connection done. Even my residential phone line is acting dodgy; I was trying to test call just now and all it returns is a busy tone. Perhaps my mum displaced the phone's handset accidentally when she last visited my house, or perhaps Singtel disconnected the line because it has been inactive for so long. Anyway, if you are a friend reading this, calling me on my HP from next Wednesday is probably a surer way of getting me.
My feeling right now: I am more of looking forward to getting back to Singapore than London. Come to think of it, putting off visiting London till the end is probably not such a good idea, since all I want to do now is to get home as quickly as possible. And dragging heavy luggages around is not my idea of an enjoyable trip. But well, I'll have the chance to visit the British Museum, and fly in the biggest plane.
Anyway, see you soon.
To sum up all my feelings: It has been great being a student. I have enjoyed my stay here; the studying, the scenery, the weather(well, the temperature, not the rain), the peace and quiet, the break from life . To all who made this possible, thank you!
I'll be heading down to London tomorrow, and then flying back on the A380 on Tuesday. I won't have regular access to the Internet from tomorrow till at least a week after I arrive, since I have to reapply to Singnet, and their website says it takes at least 4 working days to get the connection done. Even my residential phone line is acting dodgy; I was trying to test call just now and all it returns is a busy tone. Perhaps my mum displaced the phone's handset accidentally when she last visited my house, or perhaps Singtel disconnected the line because it has been inactive for so long. Anyway, if you are a friend reading this, calling me on my HP from next Wednesday is probably a surer way of getting me.
My feeling right now: I am more of looking forward to getting back to Singapore than London. Come to think of it, putting off visiting London till the end is probably not such a good idea, since all I want to do now is to get home as quickly as possible. And dragging heavy luggages around is not my idea of an enjoyable trip. But well, I'll have the chance to visit the British Museum, and fly in the biggest plane.
Anyway, see you soon.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Not Previously Seen - Part 3
Not previously seen, at least not for me. I have been trying to get my hands on one for a while now, but the Sony Reader is not sold in Singapore. As luck would have it, Sony launched it here this month, so I just had time to grab one before I go.I have to do a little bit of hacking to get the Chinese display though, since the ones sold here does not support Chinese out-of-the-box. The hack resulted in me having to store all ebooks on the SD card instead of in the main memory, but that is just a minor issue.
To be honest, e-books still can't really replace the real ones. For one, it's still easier to read from real books, especially when you need to flip back and forth through the pages quickly. However, the reading screen, built out of e-ink technology, is a vast improvement on the eyes than LCD. But of course, real books can't beat it on convenience. Now I can have several tens, if not hundred, of thousand pages of reading material I can carry around and store on one small device. You are looking at a whole bookshelf there in the picture. Great space saver.
Friday, September 12, 2008
The beginning of the end
Well, well, well....to think that I have not been posting all summer, and the first when I return is one signalling the beginning of the end of my York days. I have just returned from printing out 2 copies of my 82 page dissertation, so I am all ready for the submission tomorrow morning. So, this is it. I'm left with one final presentation middle of next week, and then it's time to close shop.
Before looking towards the end, just a short recap of what happened this summer. As you may have guessed, I have been busy with my dissertation. In fact, the only other significant thing that I did during summer is to tour England and Wales with mother and sister for three weeks. That was nice, and if you had been observant, you would have noticed some of the photos taken during the trip on flickr. There are still more than half of the photos not yet uploaded.....shows how occupied I am with the dissertation...but anyway, will try to upload them over the next week. Moral of the story: Don't take so many photos next time! "Film" is free, but time is not!
Weather wise, it has been a miserable summer. It has been raining or cloudy most of the time, literally. We have the shortest number of sunlight hours and most rainfall for summer on record! It is just as well that I have to spend the summer huddle up in the lab doing the project.
The weather has now turned colder, between 10 - 20 C now, and the days have been rapidly getting shorter, with the sun now setting at the "normal" time of about 7 plus. Ya, just when I have finished all my work, now there is no more "after-office" sunshine to enjoy. Well, I supposed it doesn't matter, the weather has continued to be wet and cold, and anyway, it is time to get use to 12 hours daylight again.
The gooslings and ducklings have all grown up, and there are now no signs of any baby birds on campus. Now that the mating season is over, the birds are again a picture of peace and harmony (ok, except during feeding time when they fight each other for the bread crumbs you throw at them). In fact, they now like to group in big flocks (will post some photos that I have taken when I can find them). Maybe they are getting ready for the migration south, and are building up relationships for the long journey ahead.
Well, to think that next week this time, I will be all packed and ready to leave York. It makes me quite sad to think about it. Since my undergraduate days, I have always enjoyed being a student, and I never dreamt that I have this chance again at this age! But all good times must come to an end, and I think this is really really the last time I will ever be a full-time student (at least not in this lifetime)
That's life. Time to prepare myself to being a teacher again, ya, and all the stress and pressures that comes with it. It will be a good test of how well prepared I am for life during this one year's break from life.
There is one more week to go here, and I'll probably be able to get a few more postings in before leaving this place for good. Almost, but not quite time yet to say goodbye.
Before looking towards the end, just a short recap of what happened this summer. As you may have guessed, I have been busy with my dissertation. In fact, the only other significant thing that I did during summer is to tour England and Wales with mother and sister for three weeks. That was nice, and if you had been observant, you would have noticed some of the photos taken during the trip on flickr. There are still more than half of the photos not yet uploaded.....shows how occupied I am with the dissertation...but anyway, will try to upload them over the next week. Moral of the story: Don't take so many photos next time! "Film" is free, but time is not!
Weather wise, it has been a miserable summer. It has been raining or cloudy most of the time, literally. We have the shortest number of sunlight hours and most rainfall for summer on record! It is just as well that I have to spend the summer huddle up in the lab doing the project.
The weather has now turned colder, between 10 - 20 C now, and the days have been rapidly getting shorter, with the sun now setting at the "normal" time of about 7 plus. Ya, just when I have finished all my work, now there is no more "after-office" sunshine to enjoy. Well, I supposed it doesn't matter, the weather has continued to be wet and cold, and anyway, it is time to get use to 12 hours daylight again.
The gooslings and ducklings have all grown up, and there are now no signs of any baby birds on campus. Now that the mating season is over, the birds are again a picture of peace and harmony (ok, except during feeding time when they fight each other for the bread crumbs you throw at them). In fact, they now like to group in big flocks (will post some photos that I have taken when I can find them). Maybe they are getting ready for the migration south, and are building up relationships for the long journey ahead.
Well, to think that next week this time, I will be all packed and ready to leave York. It makes me quite sad to think about it. Since my undergraduate days, I have always enjoyed being a student, and I never dreamt that I have this chance again at this age! But all good times must come to an end, and I think this is really really the last time I will ever be a full-time student (at least not in this lifetime)
That's life. Time to prepare myself to being a teacher again, ya, and all the stress and pressures that comes with it. It will be a good test of how well prepared I am for life during this one year's break from life.
There is one more week to go here, and I'll probably be able to get a few more postings in before leaving this place for good. Almost, but not quite time yet to say goodbye.
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